Museum, WTTW funding running on different channels

June 16, 2010|By Phil Rosenthal | Media

This is not a case of the state of Illinois, hard-pressed for cash, coming up with the scratch to preserve broadcasting's past while cutting off funds for part of its future, no matter how it might look at first glance.

The Museum of Broadcast Communications did get a $6 million capital grant from the state, so stalled construction could resume on its ambitious new, energy-efficient, 62,000-square foot Chicago facility dedicated to TV and radio at State and Kinzie streets.

And the parent of Chicago public broadcaster WTTW-Ch. 11 did cite the loss of $1.25 million in state grant money, on top of the lackluster economy, in its announcement that it must whack $3 million in operating costs and let go 25 to 30 employees.

But there's a considerable difference between the two recent developments and the two types of state funding driving them, and Museum of Broadcast Communications President and Chief Executive Bruce Dumont wants to make sure everyone knows that. Construction and wiring of his museum's big new residence will not come at the expense of "The Electric Company" and its ailing TV home.

"We're not competing with Channel 11 for their dollars," Dumont said. "There's a big difference between operating dollars and capital dollars. Capital dollars come from a completely different fund. They're totally different."

The museum is getting its money through Illinois Jobs Now, a $31 billion capital plan that's touted as creating and/or retaining hundreds of thousands of jobs over the next six years.

Dumont, who has devoted years to developing, raising money and shepherding the museum, which has been relegated to Internet-only at museum.tv since leaving the Chicago Cultural Center in 2003, said his construction project is good for at least 200 jobs. And "because Americans love radio and television," it will be a magnet for tourism when it finally opens, he believes.

"Those (Illinois Jobs Now) capital projects are funded by the sale of bonds to an international market that buys state and municipal bonds to build things and create jobs," Dumont said. "I don't think the general public understands the difference between (a capital grant and an operating grant), and I would hope the journalists would explain it."

News of the cuts at WTTW, which declined to comment on the museum's capital grant, coincides with the station's cup-rattling season. That's when it seeks to compel viewers to support shows worth watching, such as "Frontline" and "American Masters," by peppering the schedule with middle-of-the-road music programs and insipid self-help seminars.

These shows are punctuated by pledge breaks designed to be just annoying enough to get viewers to pick up the phone and give, but often miscalculate. Even when Channel 11 trots out something of merit, including homegrown specials, the breaks make it virtually impossible to watch. Who knows? Maybe it's all a plot to make people give money to get the DVDs.

But sometimes a viewer gets lucky, like Saturday night, when it was possible to jump back and forth between staggered showings of 2007's "Carole King/James Taylor: Live at the Troubadour" on WTTW and WYIN in Gary and skip the pleas.

WTTW can be rightly criticized on many fronts. Daniel Schmidt, president and chief executive, was overly ambitious before money was tight, sometimes foolishly so. (Trying to introduce a print publication? Really? In this day and age? Print?) Then, when revenue began to recede, he did not cut enough fast enough or smart enough.

One mistake WTTW seems to have made, not uncommon among traditional media outfits facing the challenges of the digital age, is to try to remain largely unchanged even as revenue and resources dried up. It is neither possible nor advisable to do the same things the same way with fewer people and tighter budgets. Better to reinvent than simply reduce. Consumers know when the same old box is filled with less product.

Its financial situation leaves WTTW in no position to cling too tightly to its past. The Museum of Broadcast Communications, meanwhile, is getting the long-ago promised state funds it needs to finish its monument to the heritage of TV and radio. The wisdom of its own 20th century bricks-and-mortar ambitions in the digital 21st century will be tested in time.

"Historically, when you look at the great museums of Chicago," Dumont said, "they have all received large sums of money from the Illinois General Assembly to get started. Many were started in the depths of the Great Depression, when it could have been argued, 'Why are you not giving bread to the poor, and spending money on building the Field Museum or the Museum of Science and Industry or the Adler Planetarium or Shedd Aquarium?'

"That's what great cities do. They build museums for the public to enjoy, and the world of museums is not totally self-sustaining. They need financial support."

Plus, if there's nothing good on TV, it's not bad for people to have somewhere to go.